Thursday, April 29, 2010

Week Two

Sorry, I haven't had time to do anything more than glance at things this week. Nothing jumped out at me in the way of exciting matchups. In 4.0 Sienna faces Chancellor's in a battle of two teams who have been top contenders in the past few years. With the significant roster turnover it's hard to tell just who will be the team to beat in that division, but tonight may tell the tale.

There were a few roster moves that made me take notice, though many of them are not coming to mind right now. Blake Martin being added to Ssshhhwings is intriguing, I guess. Martin was dominating the 4.0 tournament scene this year. Interestingly, he self-rated as a 4.5, which I guess precludes him from pursuing the top ranking in 4.0 this year. It might open things up in the tournament rankings for Oscar Larrazolo, who was plucked from the Acers roster to join the Lakeside 4.0 team. The Acers actually would have had a dangerous squad with Larrazolo, Romero, Le and Obenrader, but Larrazolo has moved to a team that will almost certainly be in the hunt. Lakeside has got to be considered the second favorite behind Freeman's team, and has added another recent self-rate in Jorge Ferrer that will bear watching.

One roster move in 4.5 that comes to mind was Ryan Cooper moving from the Jedi Knights, where he's been a fixture in the last few years, to the Katy Coaches team. I'm not sure if Cooper is in the coaching business or just lives out in the Katy area. Jedi Knights have struggled for singles players in the last several years and will again probably be very shorthanded in that department. Perhaps newcomer and self-rate Santiago Lock will be the answer. Captain Karl Burford (who does a great job with the usually undermanned Katy High School tennis team in a killer district) will pit Cooper against the Lakeside CC team today in their season opener.

Nice win for Mike Panesar and Will Taylor in 5.0 last night as the Met opened up a lead in the division. Quack Bui had a convincing win for Lakeside CC in their first match. Sienna put Chancellor's behind the eight ball early in 4.0.

I know it's early, but does anyone know what the playoff format might be this year? There are 5 divisions in 4.0, which I guess would mean ten teams in the playoffs and two round robin groups of five? I hope they keep the round robin format in 4.5 as I thought it worked really well last year.

From the "Stats that only matter to a nerd like me" department: (I'm sure I miscounted some)

Pio Davila was 15-0 last year playing 4.0. Looks like he may be a nice factor/find in singles for Tommy Ristau.

Tom Caine and Dan Courson have a lifetime record of 25-6. Caine and Tom Courson are 27-4. Whatever happened to Timothy Sebesta? Last I heard he was coaching the Lone Star College team out in Cy-Fair. The Knights were always dangerous when they could get those four in the doubles lineup.

Okay...Lock should be DQ'd...in fact he should not be a 5.0 either! he played Big 10 as recently as 2007....2006-07 Posted a 16-15 overall singles record, including 12-12 in duals and 6-4 in Big Ten play ... Anchored the No. 1 singles spot with a 7-10 record and went 5-2 at No. 2 singles ... Posted wins over No. 57 Blake Strode of Arkansas and No. 93 Chris Clayton of Harvard ... Ended the conference season on a three-match wining streak ... Anchored the No. 1 doubles spot with partner Matt Christian, going 11-12 in duals and 3-7 in the Big Ten ... Ranked as high as No. 27 nationally and No. 6 in the region in doubles, with a win over the No. 23 ranked team of Nolan Polley and Moritz Baumann of Wisconsin ... Won a match in the qualifying singles draw of the ITA All-American Championships ... Advanced to the second round of the main doubles draw with partner Matt Christian ... Won three matches in the qualifying draw ... Advanced to the round of 16 in doubles of the ITA Midwest Regional Championships with Christian ... Won a singles match at the Midwest Regional Championships ... Reached round of 16 at Big Ten Singles Championships.

Exactly how many "Santiago William Lock"s are there in the world that play tennis that well?

I'm not in their division so I'm not sure if I'll get a look at him. But there is a photo on the page of the cstv.com link. If you're in the division, check out the picture for when you play the Jedi Knights.

Santiago William "Willy" Lock on Tennis Link...Aug, 2008...TPI II Open Singles. Loses to #1 seed (former A&M player Bryan Wooten) in finals after knocking off #2 & 3 seeds. Joins up with Jimmy Chu (from Illinois - same state as Northwestern University where alleged Santiago played - coincidence?)to win open doubles. From Davis Cupper to 4.5 tennis in a span of 4 years. That's weak.

Wasnt very long ago that Letan and Copperfield were getting hammered on this blog for self rating (4.5) a lesser player than this Lock kid. So it makes you wonder, who self rated him 4.5, Captn Patton or the kid himself? Both should be ashamed!!

Ummmm not know the rules? Can he not read? It's pretty clear on the questionnaire. Lets see. 1) Have you played on the professional tour 2) Did you play in college? 3) Div 1 4) Were you Nationally ranked or on a nationally ranked team? Hmmmmm I'm so tired of hearing these excuses about not understanding the rules. Come on people. We're adults we should be able to fill out a questionnaire honestly.

It doesn't matter if he did or didn't. If someone else took on the responsibility of self-rating him then they are still accountable for making sure they do it accurately. I thought we already went through this with the guy Letan tried to self-rate as a 4.5. Ignorance is not acceptable. We all know the consequences of our actions.

The gatekeeper has to start locally. There's no way we can rely on Tosha/TTA to cull out the cheaters to the league. Cheaters doesn't just mean the players. The captains and teammates are just as liable when someone like Locke ends up on a 4.5 team who should be a minimum 6.0 player. Let's have some ethics people. We can't and won't ever clean up the league unless we start holding everyone accountable. When we see someone who looks out of level we are compelled to check on the credentials. In today's technology it's inexcusable to let it go anymore. Otherwise we should all shut up and just play the game

I'm going to protest Lock, and just to be sure, I will also protest everyone on the Jedi Knight's roster.

Then tomorrow, I will protest the rest of the players in league to make sure I don't miss anyone.

After that, I will protest anyone that was bumped down to my level.

If none of this works, then I will find Rafa and offer to fill out his self rate form and have hime play doubles with me. I had to fill it out for him because his, and my english not so good. So if there were any "errors", they were purely unintentional.

I think in a perfect world the governing body should do a 90day or 180day review of players who self rate and join to play. This way if someone who joins and it not in the right place can be correctly positioned in the right level.

Given that UTSA/TTA are resource constrained they use their customer base (us) as an enforcement mechanism to trigger a further look of someone who is not rated correctly. In an indirect way the system works.

Wherever there is competition there will be an incentive to cheat/bend the rules, etc. Don't hate the player hate the game.

Say what you want about the CC Tournament, Knutson is a RINGER....He blew that field without a problem. He beat Robles, Butt and Larrazolo. 3 players that are in the YTD top 10 not to mention James Taylor..another Solid 4.0 player....he should have waited one more year and he could have played 3.5

Get off it dude. If Knutson was really trying to boost his CV he wouldn't enter in all the MZs and play his hardest and win them all. The computer dropped him. It happens. And next year he'll probably get bumped up to 4.5 again. Let it go...

I agree with the poster above. If Knutson tanked last year, then he would continue doing it to protect his coveted 4.0 rating. At this rate, he will be bumped back up to 4.5 at mid-year. I think that he is one of those players that is a very strong 4.0 player but a lower level 4.5 player. He will continue to flip-flop between the 2 for the next couple of years.

If you didn't like having Knutson bumped down this year, then wait till year-end and see which additional players get moved down. I bet there will be a lot of players that did not like their promotion and are working their way back down. I think there will be some surprised on which player is bumped down in 4.5 and 4.0.

This is hilarious. I take a couple weeks off from the blog and come back to a Davis Cup player self-rating as a 4.5 and Knutson being a ringer in 4.0. Just think about how bad 4.0 has to be in order for people to be complaining about Knutson.

4.0 is not as strong as the past any longer and the reality is Knutson is the dominant 4.0. The bumpups have really opened the field in 4.0 league.

And yes, let's not forget Jedi Knight's Captain or Lock, himself, self-rated as a 4.5.

Lock should be protested and DQ'd out of league. Jedi Knights bear extra scrutiny because they have not demonstrated "suspicious" behavior.

Knutson - he is a computer rated 4.0, regardless of the conspiracy theory. He is not a self-rate but computer rated. More power to him if he dominates 4.0 in tournaments and league. His game ain't pretty, but it is effective. Many teams would welcome him to their 4.0 team. I agree he will be 4.5 next year.

I've seen some of the 4.0 matches this year. The tennis is horrible. The saddest part is the people who do well against the terrible compeition will be 4.5s next year. I have not seen a single player in 4.0 that belongs in 4.5 (not even Knutson). There will probably be a big swing with bad 4.0 players being bumped up to 4.5 and bad 4.5 players (but pretty good 4.0s) coming back down. 4.0 will be stronger next year as a result.